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As rival bidders gather to make a play on the fading PC maker the industry itself keeps getting worse.

Grim data out of industry tracker IDC doesn't paint a pretty picture on the state of the PC market. Worldwide shipments plunged 13.9% for all PC makers during the first quarter, according to IDC.

Dell held up relatively better globally. IDC reports that Dell's unit shipments only fell 10.9%, actually growing in the Asia/Pacific region. However, it's clear that the PC makers aren't going to bounce back anytime soon.

Market leader Hewlett-Packard(NYSE:HPQ) was a market bleeder, as shipments plummeted 23.7%, but even former market darling Apple(NASDAQ:AAPL) is having a hard time selling its Macs and MacBooks these days. The consumer tech titan experienced a 7.5% dip in U.S. shipments during the period.

Dell's deteriorating state comes at a time when founder Michael Dell's plan to quietly take the company private blew up as activist investors began to shake up rival bidders. There's thankfully more to Dell's business these days than PCs, but in this video, longtime Fool contributor Rick Munarriz wonders if the successful bidder in this surprising bidding war will wind up being the real loser here.

Dell stock has responded favorably to the prospective buyer attention, but there's little reason to expect a turnaround here in the near future.

Author

Rick has been writing for Motley Fool since 1995 where he's a Consumer and Tech Stocks Specialist. Yes, that's a long time with more than 20,000 bylines over those 22 years. He's been an analyst for Motley Fool Rule Breakers and a portfolio lead analyst for Motley Fool Supernova since each newsletter service's inception. He earned his BBA and MBA from the University of Miami, and he splits his time living in Miami, Florida and Celebration, Florida.
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